I love baking sweet things with pumpkin puree.  I’ve been making pumpkin pancakes on Sundays, and need to do something with the rest of the puree — pumpkin breads generally take a whole 15 oz can, so it’s over to things like muffins and cookies (and more pancakes!) to use it up.   I recently did a pumpkin bread with chocolate chips, and thought how nice it would be to do muffins, so I went on a search and got to choose between a ton of different recipes, some more complex than others.

This simple  recipe comes from The Joy of Baking.  These muffins are moist and tasty and were quickly eaten!  I used a 12-cup nonstick muffin tin, no paper linings, and did not need to spray or grease the cups.  This recipe calls for sifting the dry ingredients, but I don’t have a sifter, so I whisked them, which probably doesn’t lend the same amount of fluffiness to the finished muffins — but they still came out great.   The only alteration I made was to be generous with the spices, using rounded measurements instead of flat.  Next time I’ll try sprinkling a little brown sugar on the tops of the muffins before baking, for a delicious crunchy topping.

Ingredients:

  • 1-1/2 C all-purpose flour
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/4 tsp ginger
  • 1/4 tsp cloves
  • 1/4 tsp nutmeg
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 C (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
  • 1 C granulated sugar
  • 2 large eggs ( I used 1/2 C of Egg Beaters)
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 3/4 C canned pumpkin puree
  • 1 C chocolate chips (I used 60% Ghirardelli chips)

Instructions:

  • Preheat oven to 350.
  • Sift dry ingredients together in medium bowl.
  • In large bowl, cream butter and sugar together until fluffy.
  • Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
  • Beat in vanilla.
  • Alternately add 1/3 of the dry mixture and 1/2 of the pumpkin puree, mixing after each addition, beginning and ending with the dry mixture.
  • Fold in the chocolate chips.
  • Spoon into muffin tins and bake 18-20 minutes (mine needed the full 20 minutes).

Let them cool for a few minutes, then transfer to wire rack to cool.  Yum!